Ubisoft looking to “punish” players over The Division exploit

The Division received its first major piece of end-game content last week in the form of Incursions: super-challenging missions that provide some of the best gear in the game. But technical problems means there’s a glitch that players are exploiting to unfairly get numerous high-level rewards.

The Falcon Lost Incursion mission offers end-game reward loot once a week, but players have discovered a way to gain those rewards repeatedly. By using the portable cover skill to slide through a wall, players can skip a huge chunk of the Falcon Lost mission and gain access to its loot.

When using this exploit the game is tricked into thinking the loot has yet to be claimed, and so the glitch can be used again and again to collect the rewards that should only be available oncer per week.

The exploit has split the game’s community into two camps: those happy to make the most of it, and those attempting to preserve the natural curve of the game by adhering to the rules. Of course, this means those not wanting to cheat are being left behind as exploiters gain more and more high-end gear. ‘Straight’ players are even reporting that they’re being pushed out of groups who want to use the exploit, so they’re finding it difficult to play the mission as intended.

The Division’s community manager Natchai posted on the official forum, saying: “Obviously it is against our Code of Conduct. The team is looking into what can be done in terms of punishment for those who have exploited.”

Beyond that though, Ubisoft have had little to say. This understandably is frustrating players, as the Dark Zone PvP area becomes dominated by players with much better gear than they typically should have by this stage.

Quite how Ubisoft could “punish” players is a matter for thought. It would be difficult to successfully identify every individual cheater, and a roll-back of the entire game to pre-update seems extreme and would punish non-cheaters, too.

Are you a Division player? How would you like to see Ubisoft deal with the exploit?